Physics III and Physics Education

Module 1 Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics, 7.5 ECTS cr Instruction is in the form of lectures, exercises and mandatory laboratory sessions. Classical thermodynamics (4.5 ECTS cr) Basic concepts: thermodynamic systems, state, equilibrium, process, cycle. Temperature and the zeroth law of thermodynamics, internal energy, pressure, enthalpy, work, heat. The phases of pure substances and phase transitions, state diagrams and phase diagrams. Ideal and non-ideal gases. The first law of thermodynamics for closed systems. Changes in the internal energy and enthalpy of ideal gases, heat capacity. Heat reservoir, heat engine, heat pump, and cooling process, the second law of thermodynamics. Reversible and irreversible processes, the Carnot cycle, the thermodynamical temperature scale, reversible heat engines, heat pumps, and cooling processes. Entropy, the principle of increasing entropy, changes in entropy for ideal gases. Analysis of heat engines, ideal cycles. Thermodynamical potentials, Helmholtz and Gibbs free energies, Maxwell's relations. The link between macroscopic properties and statistical mechanics. Statistical Physics (3 ECTS cr) Kinetic theory for ideal gases. Probability distribution, mean, and deviation. Bernoulli processes and binomial distribution. Normal distribution, the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem, the connections between macroscopic properties and statistical mechanics. Macrostates and microstates, ensembles. Isolated systems and the microcanonical ensemble, the equiprobability principle, the entropy of isolated systems. Systems in thermal equilibrium with heat reservoirs and the canonical ensemble, the Boltzmann distribution, state sum, response functions and heat capacity, and entropy and the third law of thermodynamics. Free energy and statistical thermodynamics. Entangled particles, the Pauli principle, bosons and fermions. Classic and quantum mechanical ideal gas; the Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein, and Fermi- Dirac distributions; black body radiation. Module 2 Introductory Modern Physics, 7.5 ECTS cr Instruction is in the form of lectures, exercises and mandatory laboratory sessions. Quantum physics and its applications: From classical physics to quantum physics, wave-particle duality, quantum mechanics, states and quantum numbers of atoms, nuclear structure, nuclear reactions, radioactivity, and elementary particles. Simple model systems, such as particle in a box and harmonic oscillators. Atoms with several electrons, chemical bonding between atoms. Special theory of relativity, relativistic momentum, relativistic energy. Laboratory experiments on the energy levels of simple atom. Module 3. Practical Placement 2, 7.5 ECTS cr Students engage in the daily activities in a school, reflect on general school-related issues and plan, implement and evaluate their own physics teaching. Module 4 Modern Experimental Physics in Education, 7.5 ECTS cr The course is offered in the form of laboratory sessions where research issues and problems are explored experimentally. The course centres on a number of pre-planned and supervised laboratory experiments and on a supervised and independently conducted experimental project. The experiments deal with problems in the fields of quantum physics, solid state physics and nanoscience.